Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole • Hacker News Board

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#101

Post by mdpye » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 10:30 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #80

When I purchased my Ergodox, I also discovered that I cross-type the letter Y, and my muscle memory would lead me to hit a layer key instead, in the default layout, which would cause a bunch of the letter keys to do different things. My solution was to reprogram the layer key to be a null key that doesn't do anything, so instead of "Y equals your keyboard is now broken" it was "Y means nothing happens". I kept it tha…

I found the exact opposite for ortholinears. It took zero time to adjust, and within a day I was actually touchtyping using the properly assigned keys for every letter, something I'd tried many times over the years, but always found super awkward on a normal keyboard. I realised that I'd always subconsciously known there was something wrong with the weird fingers-curling-under-each-other you're supposed to do and it felt like a weight had been lifted!

Of course, that was for prose. It took a month or so to arrive at a satisfactory layout for all the symbols, having suddenly dropped to 48 keys. Though thumbs are so useful! Using them only for spaces is criminal.

Still use a laptop on the couch at home for casual stuff. Still can't type properly on it.

Not much point to this comment, I guess, other than that I highly recommend anyone to borrow someone's plank/preonic/ergodox for a day or two if they'll let you, and bang out some prose. You might be very pleasantly surprised!

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#102

Post by sixstringtheory » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 10:32 PM UTC

jgilias wrote: post #68

I have a kinesis freestyle. Really like how I can move the parts around depending on what feels more comfortable at the moment. However, I haven't gone down the layout rabbit hole yet. Are dvorak, colemak, etc also useful when writing in languages other than English? EDIT: ok, found the answer to my question - depends on the language, but generally not so much. So, a question to multilingual layout geeks - do you lea…

Also a happy freestyle user here, I have the version for mac. Anyone tried both the freestyle and advantage that could give some points of comparison? Is the advantage 3x as good, same as the price ratio?

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#103

Post by jen729w » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 10:33 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #80

When I purchased my Ergodox, I also discovered that I cross-type the letter Y, and my muscle memory would lead me to hit a layer key instead, in the default layout, which would cause a bunch of the letter keys to do different things. My solution was to reprogram the layer key to be a null key that doesn't do anything, so instead of "Y equals your keyboard is now broken" it was "Y means nothing happens". I kept it tha…

Yeah I got the Ergodox and just couldn’t get used to it. I think the ortholinear was a big part of that.

Especially painful as I’m in Australia. I think shipped it was about AU$500. Very not cheap indeed. I sold it on eBay and didn’t take too much of a haircut.

My other concern with the mega-custom layout is the fact that I often use ‘normal’ keyboards. I didn’t want to get used to some special situation and then not be able to use it. (Same reason I’m not putting time in to Colemak.)

Now I just use the Microsoft thing. It does the job.

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#104

Post by mdpye » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 10:35 PM UTC

questionfor wrote: post #96

Guys if you are in the market for split keyboards and can operate a soldering iron, the endgame is Quefrency 2 (60%, you actually don’t need more) or Sinc (TKL I think - without the numpad but with macro row) from keeb.io with Zilent switches. It’s programmable through QMK (so you can use layers). You can print out decent cases for it (although I prefer aluminum plates) and the switch quality you get with Zilents is…

I'll raise you the houndstooth, which ironically, being 40% ortho linear doesn't have jagged edges in spite of the name. Sadly it doesn't look like they're currently available, but it was pretty good value too.

+100 on the zilents. Best things ever.

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#105

Post by jen729w » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

kostarelo wrote: post #71

petercooper wrote: post #3

Quite the rabbit hole and definitely worth the read :-) This seems a good place to bring up an odd experience of mine. I've had carpal tunnel for decades but no longer get many flare ups. After trying numerous keyboards, the solution turned out to be using Apple's Magic Keyboard and whatever their huge trackpad is called. The key for me seems to be low key travel, a smallish keyboard (to avoid any stretching), and av…

That's super interesting, thanks for sharing. Is the magic keyboard and trackpad considered to be ergonomic? I wonder what's the difference then in split keyboards and such.

Tangential: I find using an actual (Mac) laptop, with the trackpad in front of the keyboard, to be very ergonomic. This is on a desk with a screen attached, so I’m not staring down at the laptop screen.

Rather than the hand sweeping all the way over to the right to reach the mouse, it just twists a little towards the trackpad. The palms never really leave their rests.

I don’t use it like this a lot, but when I do I enjoy it.

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#106

Post by nine_k » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

My 2¢.

I used a traditional keyboard, and could not stop peeking at it. I of course remember where each key is, but aligning my hands to it was periodically required, so that I could keep hitting the right keys.

Then I used a traditional-layout split keyboard. It was easier on my arms, but not much on my hands, and I still needed to peek at the keyboard(s) to readjust my fingers. The fact that traditional keyboards shift rows of keys half-width side to side every row, like bricks in a wall, was an obvious obstacle.

Now I got an Ergodox EZ. Its keys are in straight columns, and this helps me a lot. Many keys went to the thumb cluster, lowering the load on pinkies. Then modifier keys went to the home row, and stuff like Ctrl+shift, next to the home row, which helps immensely when using Emacs or VSCode.

My problem with Ergodox is that its pinky columns are uncomfortably positioned for my hand, I still have to move the hand a lot to hit P or Q. Also, a number of keys are hard to reach without moving the hand a lot, which sort of makes little sense when you have layers.

Mechanical switches are also a tough issue. Stuff like MX blue or Gateton green give good tactile feedback, but are loud and take effort to press. MX browns are not quiet enough to count as quiet, and give too little feedback in exchange. Gateron clears are my current choice: not ideal, but at least quiet and soft.

So my next idea is a Kyria with Kailh choc blue (25g) switches. In particular, it should make typing a P easy, and there are no extra keys to force your hand off the home row position.

BTW I wish "normal" keyboards, especially in laptops, took some ideas from the QMK firmware, or adopted it as is. Particularly home row modifiers and the idea of layers are very useful. Layers are currently implemented in a crude way with Fn keys on many laptop keyboards, so customers already are acquainted with the idea.

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#107

Post by samtuke » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 10:44 PM UTC

Great article. No mention there, or in these comments, about using split boards vertically- I adopted this two years ago and won't go back. It's trivial to strap a split board to a box of approximately shoulder width. The result suits me best - forearms and hands stay vertical in the handshake position. I don't understand why more people don't try it.

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#108

Post by iimblack » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 10:46 PM UTC

questionfor wrote: post #96

Guys if you are in the market for split keyboards and can operate a soldering iron, the endgame is Quefrency 2 (60%, you actually don’t need more) or Sinc (TKL I think - without the numpad but with macro row) from keeb.io with Zilent switches. It’s programmable through QMK (so you can use layers). You can print out decent cases for it (although I prefer aluminum plates) and the switch quality you get with Zilents is…

I much prefer the Iris. Ortholinear feels so much better than the standard layout, especially in a split keyboard. I'm just waiting for somebody to put one on a laptop.

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#109

Post by kryptn » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 10:47 PM UTC

nine_k wrote: post #106

My 2¢. I used a traditional keyboard, and could not stop peeking at it. I of course remember where each key is, but aligning my hands to it was periodically required, so that I could keep hitting the right keys. Then I used a traditional-layout split keyboard. It was easier on my arms, but not much on my hands, and I still needed to peek at the keyboard(s) to readjust my fingers. The fact that traditional keyboards s…

> BTW I wish "normal" keyboards, especially in laptops, took some ideas from the QMK firmware, or adopted it as is.

I completely agree! I believe that System76 laptops allow complete customization of the firmware, including the keyboard.

https://github.com/system76/firmware-open

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#110

Post by SimonPStevens » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 10:47 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #81

SimonPStevens wrote: post #60

I have a ergodox, and while I love it for writing prose in English, I struggle with it a bit for coding. It feels like it needs an extra column or two on the right hand side to have enough space for the symbols and special keys (arrows, home/end/pgup/pgdown, etc). I've tried all kinds of different placements or multi layer layouts to try and make everything comfortable to reach but whatever I try I can't quite get it…

I stopped using the configuration tool awhile back, so I can't share a convenient graphic, but here's my layout: https://github.com/mnemnion/ergodox/blob/master/readme.md The keymap is at least laid out visually in a way that corresponds to where the keys are. Much of this would be useless if you don't use a Mac, but perhaps the layout of glyph keys and navigation keys will prove useful to you.

Thanks. I'll definitely take a look to see if you've done anything differently to me.